The sad truth
by Raiteki-Ranory
Summary: When tronix sends Cress and Mint back in time he accidentally overshoots it a whee bit and send them back to year 0 on the Aselian calendar, does not contain spoilers now but may later.
1. Just Misunderstood

A/N: I hereby claim that I do not own any of the characters, places, or things in this story and that they all belong to the creator of the Tales games, just most of the plot. Btw this is a work in progress, a crossover between Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia. Sadly my microsoft word is broken and so I had to use notepad and notepad SUCKS! So for now thoughts will marked by being in brackets, but I promise that when my word starts to work again thoughts will be in the usual itallics.

Just Misunderstood Cress cried out "no!" as the emerald-green light surrounded him, but it was too late, he could feel himself being dragged away, almost as if a large metal hook had caught itself on his soul and ripped away, leaving his body to shrivel pitifully into nothingness.

It felt to Cress that he was falling, but not quite downwards, a little as if he was merely sliding away through the tough blackness. As he journeyed, his mind would be in varying degrees of chill and he would slip in and out of consciousness, twice he happened to fully awaken and he tried to stand but couldn't as he would succumb once again to numbing chill.

Cress landed hard on something soft and grabbed at it, wondering what it was and he heard a small "oof" at this point he looked up to see Mint's beet red face staring back at him. Realizing what he had just done, Cress pulled away from Mint's lower back, as he could fell blood rushing to his face.

Mint and Cress stared at each other for a long moment before MInt pulled up her staff and swung the tip hard into Cress' face. Cress saw the blur of Mint's staff and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground, his nose really hurt, and Mint was nowhere to be found. Cress struggled to his feet and looked around, there were shards of Mint's staff everywhere and there was blood coming out of his nose, but what really caught his attention was a man in the edge of the clearing, he wore a tunic of purple and stood proudly with deep red eyes locked directly onto Cress.

"Who... who are you?" Cress asked, covering his bleeding nose with a corner of his cape.

The newcomer approached without answering, and Cress could slightly feel mana being concentrated into the air around the two. Cress pulled up his shield and jumped backwards. Fully steeling himself for a hefty blow, instead Cress felt and saw soothing green light fall around him

Realizing what the new person had just done, Cress relaxed with embarrassment and bowed to the newcomer "I'm sorry, I was worried you were a... bandit, yeah a bandit! Anyways, I'm sorry"

Kratos' face betrayed a slightly bemused smirk and a raised eyebrow and he thought [I hope Lloyd hasn't turned out this stupid...] "well no matter, you might want to get moving before a real bandit comes this way"

A/N: This may have seemed like a short chapter, but there is a reason for this! Just bear with me for now. 


	2. Weird things

A/N: I got Libre Office! And I frankly like it much more than Microsoft Word so far, and the school year has started so that will most likely consume most of my brain cells and the two-hour walk home will consume the rest, you all will get the last negative 10% of it. You may call me out on calling Luin "Ruin" in this chapter but that is because that's what my map says, take it up with it.

Without almost no sound at all a burly man in beige clothing and light steel armor over his shoulders, knees, and head dropped from the trees and grabbed Cress from behind, holding an extinguished torch in his left arm and a knife in the right.

Cress struggled momentarily until the knife was placed to his neck, which then he stopped for fear of being murdered there and then he saw the purple dressed guy say "Put the boy down"

Kratos stood there, having a stare competition with the bandit. After a moment the newly arrived started to rifle through Cress' pockets and, finding nothing more than a few gald, released Cress from his grip and pushed him to the side and looked straight at Kratos and said "maybe you're worth more old man!"

Hearing that Cress turned quickly to yell _"wait no! He's just a healer!" _But stopped when he saw that when the bandit tried to stab Kratos. Kratos had sidestepped to the man's right, avoiding the blow, wrestled the knife out of the man's hand, wrapped his arm around the man's neck and while the bandit was busy trying to remove Kratos' arm Kratos stabbed the man slightly under the ribcage and kicked him away.

Kratos waited as the man started to slowly recover and stand, then when the bandit was almost up he threw the knife into the bandit's back and minute amounts of blood spread outward in a circle pattern on the man's clothing, everything lasted only a few seconds and consisted of a few words and grunts.

Cress pulled away from the man very scared and very quickly decided that this man must in no way _just_ be a healer, then stood up and backed even farther away and asked "just exactly who are you!"

Kratos turned slowly to the boy on the ground and looked closely at him, after a very long moment Kratos rocked backwards on his heels and replied "you might consider in your best interests to come with me for now, you don't seem to be able to protect yourself properly yet" after saying this Kratos turned and left without waiting fro a reply.

_Who is this guy? Looking at me weirdly and suddenly telling me to fallow him, what a nerve... well I suppose he's right, I was sent here to train._ When Cress looked the man was almost out of sight and he had to run to catch up and when he did words just kind of spilled out of his mouth "...hey uh... what's... your... slow down man... what's... what's your name?"

Kratos stiffened when he heard the boy call him "man" and turned towards the verbal offender "rule number one if we're going to be traveling together, don't call me 'man' cam me Kratos, what would you like to be called?"

"ah that would be Cress sir- ah I mean Kratos... Kratos right?"

Kratos stepped closer to Cress, looking him straight in the eye and said slowly "you were listening, weren't you?"

Cress was taken off guard and said "ah no sir... uh I mean yes sir, I think... yeah yes sir"

Kratos shifted wearily "then... why did you ask... Cress... you weren't thinking were you?"

Cress hung his head once again in as many minutes in embarrassment "I'm sorry sir, I'll make sure to start thinking from now on while traveling with you"

"Good, you make sure to make a habit of that and another thing, don't apologize unless it's necessary otherwise it's a sign of weakness... got it?" again without waiting for Cress to reply Kratos moved on through the woods hearing the growing boy following him wordlessly.

Cress followed his new companion through the forest, having to hope that he knew where he was headed. After several hours of traveling Cress and Kratos arrived in a town seemingly built atop a lake, which made Cress excited, making Kratos give him a speculative look.

Kratos led them out of the forest toward Ruin and acknowledged the strangely and suddenly hot weather and removed his outer coat _and now we approach the floating town-_ _wait_ Kratos caught himself mid-thought, _Ruin doesn't float... ah it's the heat waves coming off of the water... what's happening here?_ Kratos glanced at Cress, humphed, and continued nearing the town.

Cress smiled and and turned to Kratos as they continued "today is a nice day for a walk isn't it?" _I just wish Mint could be here to appreciate this with me, and help me figure out what we're supposed to do... _as Cress' train of thought trailed off he considered asking Kratos some questions that were starting to form in his head, and he decided that he shall.

Cress tapped Kratos' shoulder and asked "so is this town the only nearby town or are there others because I was traveling with this girl, but she ran off without me so I was hoping we could check around for her"

Kratos stopped and thought for a second, and decided to give Cress the half-truth, "Sure seeing as I have nothing to do I'll accompany you, we just need to stop at Ruin first" as he said this he gestured towards the lake town.

Cress glanced towards the town and replied "for supplies right?... but why is it called ruin?... what happened there?"

Kratos shook his head in slight exasperation "yes... too long to list... again, too long to list, but it happened a very long time ago and it doesn't matter anymore come let's go"

Cress followed Kratos towards the town and as they neared within feet of the bridge militiamen on the other side started to approach the two travelers, Kratos put out an arm to his right in order to halt Cress and waited for the guards to finish their short trek.

The guards approached the motley pair of travelers and the militiaman on the left grumbled out "state your name and business"

Kratos mumbled "what's this about?" and then spoke up so that the militia could hear him "why would two simple travelers need to offer identification for Ruin now?"

The two men just stood there with their pikes and said "tell us or leave, we are starting to record the names of the people entering and leaving ,and the times they did so, so that we can take easy track of lawbreakers and trouble-makers... like you two might steal an apple, and we'd be able to track you down and interrogate you about it based on the times you were in town.

Kratos gave a deep sigh and said "alright then I'm Kratos Aurion and this is Cress..." Kratos allowed the word to hang in the air before Cress fulfilled "Albein, Cress Albein"

The two officials jotted down their information and stepped to the side to allow them in but as they passed the militiamen eyed them suspiciously.

When Cress and Kratos approached the square Cress noticed a very peculiar man so he glanced at Kratos, who appeared to know them man...

A/N: Oooh who might that be! I'll reward you if you guess right in a review or a pm! Otherwise school likes to munch on my brain. Worship the Giant Jellyfish in the sky! Peace out.


End file.
